ROBIN ABCARIAN : Dogged City Puts Bite on Petty Theft

Frankly, I think they should have thrown the entire library at Rori O’Neill. The cities are crumbling, the gangs are driving law-abiding citizens off the streets and now this: Someone who thinks she can just help herself to property belonging to the city of Long Beach.

Not so fast, Ms. O’Neill.

And would it be too much for the citizens of Long Beach to expect a little repentance?

After all, you might think that someone caught red-handed-- in fido delicto, as it were--would ‘fess up. Not this one. The woman is a hopeless recalcitrant.

There she stood, a hardened criminal--knees knocking, lower lip trembling--trying to pass herself off to Judge Tracy Moreno as a humble humanitarian.

Fortunately, the law never naps in Long Beach: You steal a puppy, you go to jail.

Unless it makes the law look bad.

It would appear in this case that the prosecutor, hounded by the publicity and the bleeding-heart phone calls to his office, capitulated: OK, he told O’Neill, you explain yourself and apologize, and we’ll let you live. No fine, no jail.

He probably couldn’t face being the featured heavy on “Hard Copy” again. Wimp.

The heat must have been too much for the man. After all, this was a scandal of national proportions. Surely you saw the daily front-page coverage in the Long Beach Press-Telegram? No? Let me recapitulate.

Last June, O’Neill, a 35-year-old secretary for McDonnell Douglas who has since been laid off, volunteered to wash pooches at the Long Beach Animal Control shelter. As she shampooed Shar-Peis, a stream of citizens trickled through asking which animals were available for adoption that day. The pound was so disorganized, O’Neill says, that no one could figure out which animals were adoptable, which were on a mandatory five-day hold and which were on the eve of destruction.

By day’s end, O’Neill was frustrated. Holding a newly clean fur ball under one arm, she snapped. The dirty deed was hatched: She decided to abduct the Alsatian. Or maybe it was a Samoyed. No one was sure. Anyhow, she says she thought she was saving it from a premature trip to hound heaven.

“These poor dogs have been scared to death,” says O’Neill. “They shake so much they can barely sit. They’re terrified. The last part of their life they’re being dragged into that room to be killed. And they know it. You can see it in their eyes.”

Motive, schmotive. Criminal behavior will not be tolerated in Long Beach.

O’Neill gave the puppy to neighbors. But the next day, a posse of animal control officers, acting on a tip, arrived at her home demanding the stolen merchandise.

The purloined puppy was produced, and the neighbors were not allowed to adopt it. Shelter workers told O’Neill it would have to be kept for “evidence.” O’Neill knew she was in deep doggie doo.

Months later, long after the puppy was adopted by another family, she was charged with petty theft and concealing an impounded animal. She faced a jury trial and the possibility of a $2,000 fine and two years in the people pound.

Which is how O’Neill, whose father and uncles founded the famous O’Neill wet-suit company in her hometown of Santa Cruz, came to be standing last month in Department 11 of Long Beach Municipal Court, facing the judge, the television cameras and the music.

The distemperish prosecutor stated the deal: If O’Neill apologized and licensed her own dog--whose tags had expired--he would drop the case.

You would think the defendant would practically foam at the mouth in gratitude. You would be wrong. Stretching the meaning of the word apology beyond any known definition, she produced a two-page indictment of the animal shelter that ended with a zinger: “Given the choices I had, I’d rather be a puppy thief than a puppy murderer.”

The prosecutor barked--er, balked.

The judge called the suits from both sides--the People and the public defender--into her chambers. It was no contest: The prosecutor, a bull mastiff, dwarfed the public defender, a French poodle.

When they returned to the courtroom, the People were smiling. So this is how they behave when they are about to put another criminal back on the streets? Shameful.

O’Neill’s options were recast: Either apologize in two sentences or the charges would be reinstated; no sermons from the mount.

You could tell O’Neill has no conscience. Her mouth was so dry her lips were sticking to her teeth. She couldn’t speak. But she did roll over.

Her mouthpiece, the public defender, said it for her: “I took a dog to find it a home because I was afraid it was going to be destroyed. I apologize.”

And off O’Neill strolled, into the late afternoon haze, unshamed, another thug set loose by the system.

The prosecutor sighed. Finally, he could return his attention to the lawless city. Somewhere in Long Beach, even as we snicker, someone may be dropping a gum wrapper on the sidewalk.